


Catgut

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/M, Furiosa Whump, Graphic Description of Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, Kinktober 2016, Medical Inaccuracies, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon, where the hurt party doesn't want comfort and the other is too angry to be comforting anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-15 17:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14794793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: The both of them hate getting medical attention of any sort. Max has always preferred to lick his wounds in peace, but he at least knows when things are bad enough that he needs outside help.Furiosa apparently doesn't.





	Catgut

**Author's Note:**

> A very non-sexy Kinktober '16 ficlet, originally posted [on tumblr]()!

The both of them hate getting medical attention of any sort. Max has always preferred to lick his wounds in peace, but he at least knows when things are bad enough that he needs outside help.

Furiosa apparently doesn't.

He was hanging in that cage for long enough that he's not sure if it was two months or twelve, and in that time saw plenty of what sorts of things the Organic Mechanic did to those under his 'care'. He doesn't really blame her for being shy about going in for the minor things she can treat herself, even with the much gentler dispositions of the new medics.

It's when she comes back from a trade run and doesn't tell anyone she's been hurt badly enough for it to matter, blood soaking unnoticed into the black of her armor, that it becomes a problem.

He thinks she's just tired out from the run- adrenaline crashes are swift and brutal- until it's nighttime, and she's refusing to take off her stomach piece as they bed down.

"It's fine," Furiosa says when he asks if she wouldn't be more comfortable, shutting down the suggestion as if she always sleeps with it on.

She winces when she settles onto the bed and he thinks probably she's sore, thinks maybe she wants the corset on to try and keep her muscles supported. Max isn't entirely convinced but they're her own clothes to do with as she likes, and he's sure she's too tired for anything more than sleep so there's no compelling reason he can offer for her to disrobe.

There's blood on the sheets when he wakes up, far too high up for if she'd started her period during the night, and when he shakes her awake she's uncharacteristically sluggish. He runs a hand carefully over where the blood seems to be coming from though she sleepily protests and finds the leather on her side tacky, a long slash parting it just over her hip that he knows wasn't there when she left.

"You're hurt?" he asks, trying to not make his voice sound like an accusation, trying not to let the panic overtake him. There's blood staining their bed and that isn't just bruises and scrapes, isn't small enough to be patched up and left unmentioned.

"'s nothing," Furiosa says, unconvincing. "Bandaged it already."

He prods carefully at the edge of the cut in the leather and she hisses in pain, tries to squirm away without bending at the waist at all.

"I'm fine," she repeats, firmer.

"Let me look," Max says just short of pleading already, fear a metallic taste on his tongue. She hates medics of any sort but she trusts him, or at least he think she does. "Just me."

She sends him a hard look and repeats, " _I'm fine_."

It looks like it's a considerable task for to get up off the bed, and he can see that she's gritting her teeth in an effort to not let any weakness show. She sways a little when she's finally standing, but then she's up and he knows she'll do anything to keep her feet under her.

Furiosa looks down at her boots lying on the ground, fallen over and needing to be tugged on. She starts slowly lowering herself into a crouch to pick them up but overbalances, and flings out her left arm exactly as if she has a hand there to stop herself from falling.

That's when Max knows it's bad.

She lands with a cry of pain that's muffled like she's desperately trying to hold it in and he's at her side before he knows he's moved, hands on her shoulders.

"Let me help," he says, wanting to wrap her in his arms and somehow make it better. There haven't been any perilously close calls since that day in the Gigahorse but the fear is ever-present, what's usually a shadow at the corner of the room now threatening to swamp over him.

She growls but doesn't fight when he helps her move to the bench in front of her worktable, and he kneels on the hard stone below to undo the laces of her corset with shaking fingers.

There's a wad of fabric pressed between the leather and her skin, so soaked with blood he can't tell what's fresh and what's been seeping into it for hours. He peels it away carefully but she still flinches and makes a hurt noise when the fabric pulls at where the blood's encrusted it onto her skin.

The cut is large and messy, deep enough that he can see white fat and red muscle under her skin but not so much that he smells a nicked bowel, long enough that it stretches from midway to her belly button to just around the curve of her side.

" _Furi_ ," Max breathes with a touch of horror, nearly a whine. It's not as bad as it could be but there's blood trickling out of it even now, all the more so from the moving she's been doing.

"See? Not so bad," she insists, as if he can't see that it _is_ bad, as if he can't hear the strain in her breathing from the pain of it.

"I'm stitching it shut," he warns her, tone brooking no argument. She doesn't say anything, just watches him with tired steely eyes. There's a well-stocked kit in the room already, and he wonders if she would have sewn the gash up herself the night before if he hadn't been in the room with her, wonders how often she's stitched herself closed over the years and been lucky it was enough.

He grabs a clean-enough scrap of cloth and the bottle of astringent disinfectant and wipes away the bloody edges of the wound, hating the noises Furiosa makes at the sting, the way she flinches and tries to pull away. His hands are trembling too much for him to thread the needle and he closes his eyes, presses his forehead to her thigh and sucks in a deep breath.

A very loud but not very helpful part of him wants to run from the room and never look back, terrified of losing her and even more terrified of what it means that he's feeling it so strongly. Another part wants him to run and get one of the medics, though he knows she won't easily forgive him for it. It isn't infected yet, she hasn't lost enough blood for him to seriously consider hooking his veins to hers again. He can stitch it shut on his own.

Max takes another breath and forces the thread through the eye of the needle, then forces the needle through her skin. She's completely rigid under his hands, eyes wide and tracking his movements but glassy, a cold sweat building on her forehead.

He works as quickly as he can while still doing it right, making sure the edges of her flesh seal up neatly together as much as they can. He knots off the end of the thread and heaves a sigh, the bleeding slowed to a few droplets welling up.

Furiosa whimpers when he goes over her skin with more disinfectant, a vulnerable hurt noise that he never wants to hear from her again. If they were at the infirmary he could spread something over the wound, one of the salves the healers make to soothe and keep out infection, but all he has here are bandages. He pads the area carefully with clean gauze, winds a longer strip around her middle to keep it in place.

The he sits back, hands stained with her blood, and says with more heat than he intends, "Don't _ever_ do that again."

She bares her teeth at him, hackles immediately raised. "I can take care of myself," she says, "I survived just fine before you."

Max thinks about all the scars he's traced with his hands, the joints that don't move quite as fluidly as they should, the blood rusting away on their sheets because of her stubbornness. She's survived, and probably would have survived this too, but he doesn't think he wants her to have to push her luck to _just_ survive.

"At least," he says, and swallows down the desire to try and force her to see his point of view, how he doesn't want to see her hurt at all, "At least fix yourself up before it's bad. You can tell me t' leave."

"It wasn't that bad," Furiosa says, defensive still but tired.

He breathes out forcefully. Nods his head. His knee cracks audibly when he stands up from the floor and he winces, tries to keep his weight off it while he goes for his brace.

He sees her pick up her armor and set it in her lap, fingers tracing over the cut in the leather. She knows it's a bad slash, was a close call that could have grown to worse, she must know. Max wonders if she'll just patch the damage up like nothing's happened.

"I didn't mean to have you worry," she says, voice quiet.

He wishes she'd spend the day resting, let him change the sheets and fuss over her until she's better, but he knows it's dangerous to even hope she won't tear her stitches open before the day's over. He shrugs.


End file.
